https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/30/world-2024-guardian-writers-what-to-look-out-for

Domestically, the problems caused by China’s ageing, shrinking population will start to become even more acute. Despite a host of incentives to encourage people to have more children – including tax breaks, subsidised IVF and other subsidies – young women are refusing to toe the party line.

Although Beijing has made it clear that procreation is a national priority, and tightened the atmosphere for open discussion such that feminist groups that promote child-free lives are shut down – women are voting with their bodies. With an ever-increasing cohort of pensioners who expect comfortable retirement support and are willing to protest when their benefits are cut, China’s policymakers will have to find alternative ways of supporting the greying population.

One way could be opening the door to migrant workers – an approach that China, like other east Asian countries, has long rejected. Although China has a worryingly high youth unemployment rate, many blue-collar industries such as manufacturing have labour shortages.

The government expects nearly 30m manufacturing jobs to go unfilled by 2025. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has called on the country’s youth to “eat bitterness” – a Chinese phrase for enduring hardship – to help the economy. But as with the women who are refusing to have children, young people aren’t listening.